So is it worth having a Netflix subscription in Brazil? HELLS NO. But with one month for free, I had the chance to watch some of the classics I didn't before. And I'll start the list with the film from the gif above!

I'm not a big fan of Woody Allen, but I really laughed quite a few times while watching this movie. It's a classic. With Allen as the director and protagonist, a comedian called Alvy Singer, he obviously has that personality that combines pessimism, black humor, irony and some cult/artsy behavior. After falling in love with Annie Hall (Diane Keaton) almost by chance, since she was the first to get interested, Alvy discovers in her simplicity and authenticity something he missed from the other relationships. But as the time goes by, Diane starts to feel like she's too dumb compared to Alvy's interests and knowledge. She's much simpler than him, she's straight-forward and has a great humor, while Alvy is "darker," more ambitious and too critic about everything. 

This scene in the picture above was one that made me laugh the loudest, I think. Because I could relate. They're in the queue to watch a 4 hour long documentary on Nazism and there's a guy right behind them talking about philosophy, art, literature and explaining Marshall McLuhan's theory. Alvy gets so annoyed he keeps complaining to Annie how irritating that guy was, because he's not only talking bullshit but he's also talking too loud, as if he wanted people to notice him. I do the same, literally. I keep complaining about people to my boyfriend and sometimes I do it more or less loudly so the person can hear they're annoying. The funny thing is that in this scene, Alvy imagines that he could actually invite McLuhan to the conversation, so he can tell this guy that, no, he's talking bullshit, and that felt so delightful to me that I immediately fell in love with the movie.

2. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975)

I have seen this movie all around for years, but never thought I would be interested in seeing it. The name didn't sound great to me, nor the pictures showed much to make me curious, but as it was in the Brazilian Netflix catalogue, so I gave it a chance. In the end, there's Jack Nicholson and he's such a great actor that it's hard to see him in a movie that is too bad (besides Anger Management, but that's the Sandler effect).

The film tells the story of a guy who is arrested over and over for several reasons, including rape. There are some sexist passages in the movie and it's pretty much a sausage fest all the time, but it's interesting to see the other side of Nicholson's character, McMurphy, who is taken to a sanatorium with people that suffer from different disorders, but they all have a personality and McMurphy finds a way to engage them and not only get what he wants, but make them go beyond the medicine and the confined world of that hospice. It's interesting to see him as an agent of chaos and a questioning subject who won't take orders from above just because they are in a position of power. It's a micro-universe that lends a lot from Foucault, I think (and it wouldn't be surprising since madhouses were one of the French author's subjects), but the ending gives a darker tone to a flick that is basically more or less lighthearted comedy.

Among the chaos and nonsensical stuff of The Congress, there are several philosophical (mostly existential) questions posited when taking in consideration future technologies as a development of current tendencies: hedonism, pop culture, the cult of celebrities, art vs profiting and so forth. It's a very interesting piece for those who have studied media and even art, since you can see the imagery was heavily inspired by Miyazaki and the 70s psychedelic animations, but also classic paints like Hieronymus Bosch and his Garden of Earthly Delights. Very intriguing, but a bit too ambitious for a 123 minutes movie, I think.

4. Mammoth (2009)

With a lot of Ladytron tracks, this movie is very interesting. It took me a long time to watch it too. The photography is great and it was amazing to see the mixture of the cultures, American and Thai. It's a movie about globalization, in a way, but it's also about family values... though from a very sexist perspective. I don't want to spoil the film, but it's basically about a game developer that travels to Thailand to sign a contract while his family is left in New York. His wife is a surgeon who has trouble sleeping and his daughter feels closer to the nanny, a Thai woman who left her own sons behind to get some money in the US. 

As these mothers struggle with their own issues (which are all concentrated in the fact that they are women and mothers), the protagonist interpreted by Gael García Bernal takes some vacations in the Thai islands and, with that, he decides to leave all his life behind and live again like a teen, with no responsibilities or anything. In the end, he falls in love with a local prostitute while his wife suffers for a child patient that was stabbed by his own mother in NY. It felt a bit offensive to me that the short period love story in Thailand gained a bit of a romantic approach, since in the end all women end up screwed for being women and the man is just having some fun, since he has his beautiful house in NY, with his family waiting for him and knowing nothing about his "escape." Apart from that, it's a curious movie with some passages about life and the value we give to money.

5. Er ist wieder da (2015)

I'm definitely not a fan of comedies, but this movie is not exactly one anyway. I mean, it is, but behind the jokes and the meme references, there's a message about Nazism and Hitler himself. The story focus on the idea that Hitler traveled through time and ended up in present-day Berlin. A failed filmmaker finds him and starts a documentary journey through Germany, which is presented to us as being real occasions in which Hitler discusses with several people that end up agreeing with him, mostly about immigration issues. The idea is to show how he would become, again, a superstar and how his arguments are still present in our lives till these days, though modified.

Just like The Congress, Er is wieder da (translated as Look who's back) also criticizes media and celebrity cultures, by showing how some discourses, if well presented, are easily bought by the audience. In a world where we have Donald Trump and our Brazilian politicians (and stand-up comedians) making sexist, racist and violent comments about several people and subjects, and still have a lot of followers, it's totally believable that something like that could work again and we wouldn't be aware of it. But, ultimately, the film also wants to show that putting Hitler simply as a monster or as a sick person works the other way around as making him not guilty and separated from humankind, when, in fact, he was a human just like us who had the right tools to get enough power to do what he did.

6. Vertigo (1958)

I don't want to be repetitive and boring, but here's another example of a great, beautiful movie with a sexist premise. One of Hitchcock's masterpiece, this film tells the story of a detective who retires after an accident where he discovers he has acrophobia, fear of heights. But an old friend asks him to follow his wife, as she seems to be possessed and acting differently. He accepts and finds out that this woman seems to be following the pattern of a Spanish lady who committed suicide at her current age, though she doesn't know she's actually her grandmother.

Well, I don't want to give spoilers again, but as you watch the movie you discover that the detective falls in love with this woman and he becomes obsessed by her. The problem is that there's both his friend, who is in love with him (though he doesn't know or even care about it), and another woman who even changes her hairstyle in order to make him happy and able to love her. I won't give further details so I won't spoil your experience, but that's already enough to understand how much the plot undermined women in spite of being a brilliant picture.

7. Perfume: The Story of a Murderer (2006)

Needless to say that this movie loves ginger girls. It tells the story of a murderer who happened to be also the best creator of perfume scents in the France of the 18th century. Ben Whishaw interprets this serial killer who was already born with the gift of having a very good smell, to the point he can even discern the elements. But as this becomes his obsession, especially when he captures the smell of people, especially women. From prostitutes to the daughter of a rich man, this killer wants to reunite 13 scents so he can create the perfect perfume.

The film is quite fantasy-like, from its photography to the story. Directed by Tom Tykwer, the same director of Lola rennt and who collaborated with the Wachowskis for Cloud Atlas, the movie is beautiful and interesting. It keeps your attention to the story and to the colors, mostly.

8. We Are Legion (2012)

This documentary is a good start for those who want to be more aware of what's the Anonymous and what hackers have been doing in terms of political or only "for fun." It traces a history of this group from the MIT, when the word "hacker" started to be used for pranksters and for curious people who wanted to go beyond, from puzzles to computers, from memes on image boards to Wikileaks, riots and organized actions.

It's not only interesting but it also catches your attention with testimonials of people who never did anything like actual hacking, but ended up with a harsh sentence of arrest for simply using a program to overload some website they targeted. In this sense, the documentary shows both the amazing and thrilling part of taking action in the Anonymous and also the harsh consequences faced by these people, especially in the US, where the law for digital crimes is not exactly fair.

9. Pope Joan (2009)
Based on a popular medieval legend about a woman who became pope, this Netflix production has many stars from the public opinion and it's really a good movie. In opposition to all these examples I gave above of sexism and reduction of women characters, here is an example of an ambitious, intelligent and great woman who came out of a village, running away from an abusive father, who was a priest and didn't want her to study for being a woman.

But she made it, though most of her life faking she was a man in order to get to the places she wanted to. It felt very realistic, also because the movie touches on subjects like, how could she keep deceiving people of being a man for so many years, though one thing caught my attention: they never mentioned the fact that she never would have beard growing on her face, but that's a minor detail that only made me curious. The character is inspiring and though she fakes she's a man, she never loses her womanhood - and not even fulfill her chastity vote, since the legend tells she got pregnant too.

So this is it! I hope you liked the list and if you want, I can keep posting stuff like that - but not about Netflix, since my subscription ends next week (and I'm definitely not renewing it :P)